The Long, Dark Night of Forever
by roisaber
Summary: Any dream will become a nightmare if it drags on for long enough.


**The Long, Dark Night of Forever**

_As I walked into the bar_

_ A man came up to me and said:_

_ You know the older you will get_

_ The more perverted you will get_

-Gogol Bordello, When the Trickster Starts A-Poking

For ten thousand years, the civilizations of mankind rose and fell. The Zodiac preceeded through the equinoxes, and Bella watched as the lands of Washington turned from forest to desert, and then back into forest again. The calendars stopped referencing Christ and then stopped mentioning Ben Ali in turn. In the year that might have once been known as AD 11,992, Bella and Edward lived disharmoniously in the Castle Jefferson, overseeing the poor, filth-ridden Barony of Jefferson. The current Baron Jefferson was a meat puppet, carefully bred for ignorance and incuriosity, so much the better to be pliable to the interests of the ancient vampires. Only a few people in the castle knew of their existence. If any told tales out of school they would be ruthlessly murdered, their bodies dumped in an unmarked grave in the deindustrialized wasteland that characterized the Barony.

"Lady Bella, if you'd only listen - " their court engineer, von Clausewitz, stammered.

Bella hardly looked at him with her drained and lifeless eyes. "Go away, person. You are boring me."

But von Clausewitz pressed forward anyway. "But we could quadruple our electricity generation in just a few years with this newly recovered technology! It would revolutionize life in the Barony!"

Bella stared at him, taken aback. The man was an irreplaceable genius so she preferred not to simply murder him, but his ignorance on how to establish total dominion over a political state astounded her.

"And what, then?" she finally asked. "And then the peasants discover that they can do more work with the same amount of effort. And what, then? And then they waste their free time on idle frivolities, like art and mathematics and alchemy. And what, then? And then they start asking, 'Why should we pay our hard earned money to a backwards, rent-seeking aristocrat?' And then do you know what they do, Karl? And then they storm the castle with torches and pitchforks and put everyone they find inside to the sword. Including you."

"I don't know why your predictions must always be so grim," von Clausewitz objected under his breath.

Bella chose to ignore the man's insolence. Instead, she retreated into her inner quarters, which filled a tower in the castle's eastern wing. The main point of differentiation between nobles and commoners was access to very limited electricity, and Bella turned on all the lights in her room with a self-satisfied smirk. She turned on the transistor radio standing in the corner by her bookshelf, and danced alone, before the floor length mirror, admiring her own immortality. Even after millennia, she still looked good. Her pale skin glittered in the fading, brilliantly orange sunset. Her breasts were still firm and supple, filling out the black corset that took two servants to get her into every morning. Her mousey brown hair had been elegantly coiffed until she was almost unrecognizable; an unheard of luxury in comparison to the grinding poverty in the city below. The only thing that gave her away was the emptiness in her rose-colored eyes.

The sun dipped down below the horizon and the city's watch fires roared up in earnest. It was uncommon for the Jefferson Barony to come under attack by raiders but the threat still lingered, despite Bella's frequent scourings of the countryside. Only two people had the authority to terrorize peasants in Bella's domain – herself, and her deathless bastard husband, Edward. She boiled with rage at the mere thought of him and almost hurled a book into the large mirror before she stopped herself; it was a priceless antique, and at the level of technological development humanity had devolved into after the ravages of two eras of global climate change, it was probably irreparable. Animal instincts flared, and Bella realized that some of her undirected anger was probably the result of her hunger.

It wouldn't do to draw a great deal of attention by wandering into town wearing her corset and robes. Instead, she stalked over to her closet and evaluated the outfits available, some specifically chosen for hunting. The peasants in Barony Jefferson were dirt poor and generally wore roughly woven cotton tunics and pants. Just showing up to town _not_ covered in the sweat and filth of a hard day in the fields would be enough to garner her all the attention she required to succeed at her hunt. She dressed, let down her hair, sprayed on a tiny amount of rosewater perfume, and unlaced the top of her shirt until a copious amount of her smallish bosom was on display. Satisfied, she left her high tower and sought to exit using an underground tunnel that would conceal her comings and goings from Castle Jefferson.

Unfortunately, who should be returning from town at that moment but her loathed husband. Even worse, he was carrying the limp body of a young girl, not even into menarche. Bella turned on him vehemently.

"Pedophile!" she hissed.

"Cum dumpster!" he countered, baring his teeth.

After so many years, the two were like great cats fenced into too small a territory. But each had poured too much effort into the Jefferson Barony to simply leave, and so the pair did their best to simply avoid one another. After a full millennium of fighting that occasionally culminated in open violence, the two had fallen into an armistice of threats and insults. Full of loathing, Bella stood aside to allow Edward to flee past her carrying his dubious prize. Shaking with stress from the chance encounter with her husband, she hurried through the tunnel that let out in a private club so that she could make an inconspicuous exit from the castle.

The bartender bowed to her, but was smart enough to keep silent.

Outside, the bustle of night was just beginning. The town was active for a couple hours after dark; it was the only time available to socialize, court, and brawl. The entire daylight hours were taken by backbreaking work in the fields, and each man and woman had a different strategy of coping with their thankless, difficult lives. A few bars were wealthy enough to have electric lights, and at these, the "middle class" of artisans and merchants congregated. Bella considered targeting one of the travelling merchants selling goods from far away lands like Los Angeles or the IdahoTerritories. But no. In the long term, that would make it more difficult for her to obtain new and interesting goods, and tonight she wanted to kill. Tonight, she wanted to murder.

Instead, she headed to the town's most ramshackle bar, The Dry Teat. It was where the genuine scum of Jefferson Barony went to drink themselves into an incoherent stupor, and it would only be a matter of time before somebody tried to rape her. Sometime in the past fortune of years that had become a great source of amusement to Bella – to play the helpless female, to resist impotently, and then, when her would-be rapist was just about to come, to tear out his throat and feast on the nectar within. As anticipated, The Dry Teat was busy with dregs searching for the one drink that would finally make their troubles disappear.

The moment she entered, the catcalls began. She put on her most affected innocence and made her way to an empty stool at the bar. She wasn't quite the only woman in The Dry Teat – there was one other, a washed-up prostitute still trying to vend her spoiled wares.

"Hey, pretty lady," a drunk at the bar tried to warn her. "Ain't no place for you, here."

"Can't a lady get a drink?" she asked cheerfully.

"See as you ain't get more," he answered cryptically.

The bartender looked at her disapprovingly.

"Whiskey?" Bella asked without holding much hope.

He snorted. "We got rotgut, swill, and moonshine. Take yer pick."

"Moonshine."

The bartender shook his head, but turned to fill her order. He took one of an identical series of bottles and poured a generous drought into a dirty ceramic cup. She paid him in copper, and took a deep sniff of the unpleasant liquor. It smelled like turpentine and probably tasted worse, but she had a role to play so she took a deep drink of it anyway. Even concentrating, she almost gagged. It burned her throat as badly as the worst episode of hunger.

"How was that, then?" the bartender asked her disinterestedly.

She couldn't keep down a sarcastic remark. "Oh, wonderful. I'm surprised you're not the most famous bar from here to SeattleTown."

Peeved, the bartender resolved to ignore her. If she got gang-raped, beaten, or killed, it wouldn't do his business model any harm; people would just chalk it up to another evening at The Dry Teat. Even the constabulary avoided it whenever they could. The murder of a woman who'd clearly been looking for trouble would hardly rise to the level of their attention.

It didn't take long for a target to present himself to Bella. He pulled on her sleeve from behind, trying to free more of her breasts from her partially laced top.

"Evening there, beautiful," the drunk slurred.

She turned demurely and brushed his hand off her shoulder. "Can I help you?"

The man cackled cruelly. "I reckon."

The bartender rolled his eyes. "Shit, Nash, let'er alone."

The man called Nash flicked out a lethally sharp switchblade out from his tunic.

"What do you reckon you gonna do about it?" he asked the bartender coldly.

Bella cut in. "Look, I don't want any trouble. I'll just leave."

The bartender kept a careful eye on Nash. "That sounds like a good idea."

Bella hurried out of The Dry Teat, careful to accidentally stumble on the way out. It was a wounded gazelle gambit, and it usually worked like a charm. Sure enough, Nash followed her out. Entirely too easy. The area around The Dry Teat was forested and undeveloped, and it was a ten minute walk down a narrow forest trail to get back into town. To get Nash's blood pumping and his instincts up, she picked up the pace, forcing him to hurry to close the distance between them. When he was within a few feet, she spun and faced him.

"Leave me _alone_!" she cried.

Nash just grunted and clocked her across the jaw. She saw it coming, of course, but it was more fun when she played along. She let out a sob and crashed to the ground in a pile of leaves just off the trail. He was on top of her instantly, jamming his dirty fingers into her pussy without a moment's hesitation. In spite of herself, Bella found that she was getting turned on by the man's forcefulness – and by the thought of the feast awaiting her. Too hungry for further games, she punched the man in the Adam's apple, sending him coughing to the ground next to her. Then she turned the tables and crawled on him, and he gazed into her eyes by the light of the nearly-full moon.

"D… demon!" the man shrieked, crossing himself in terror.

He tried to struggle but he was no match for the millennia-old vampire. She tore open his throat with her teeth and drank deeply from the rich blood that pooled in the wound. Nash was no great prize and the flavor was questionable, but she gulped it down anyway until his heart fluttered to an erratic stop. Temporarily sated, she unceremoniously dragged his body into the foliage, leaving the flesh behind for Jefferson Barony's numerous carnivores.

A woman in a blood-stained tunic was a dangerous giveaway, and she kept off the trails and headed back towards the Castle Jefferson. There were wolves out, tonight, and she hoped that she wouldn't be ambushed by a pack attracted by the smell of fresh blood. She could kill them easily, of course, but that might leave behind a little too much incriminating evidence for hunters to find. It would be easy enough to believe that a drunk had fallen outside The Dry Teat and been attacked by a forest predator, but an entire pack of dead wolves might make peasants ask undesirable questions. She hurried but didn't run, her footing sure on the loose, wet soil of the heavily forested Washington wasteland.

The barking of the wolves drew closer, and she decided to pick up her pace. Suddenly, she tripped over an outstretched root and went sprawling down into the dirt. When she looked back up, she beheld the sight she least wanted to see in the universe, even less than her despised husband – a trio of two naked men, and one woman.

"My, my, what do we have here?" the woman asked, looking down on Bella with amused contempt.

"A sparrow?" asked the man on the left.

"Perhaps it's a starling," suggested the man on the right. "A pretty little thing, at least."

Bella carefully picked herself up off the soil. She felt an emotion she had not felt in a very long time – fear.

She measured her words imperiously to mask her terror. "What do you want? This is my territory and you have no right to come here unannounced."

They just laughed. Of course the shapeshifters didn't give a damn about the byzantine laws, families, alliances, and betrayals that kept the vampires from mutual obliteration. She considered crying out to her husband for help – but would he come to protect her? Or would he just laugh, relieved to finally have her gone?

"Killing her would be too easy," the naked woman announced.

One of the men put in, "I say we give her a sporting chance."

"What do you want?" Bella asked, shaking with fear.

She knew full well what they wanted.

"We want an exciting evening, lovely. I'll tell you what. We'll give you a ten minute head start." The leader of the shapeshifters ostentatiously checked her mechanical watch. "Ready, set, go!"

Hating herself with every step, Bella ran. She knew she was no match for three shapeshifters, and the fact that one of them was a woman was an ominious sign. Perhaps, if she lived through the night, she'd consult with Athenodora about the unusual development. She ran heedlessly back towards Castle Jefferson, stumbling into the dirt several times in her haste to put distance between herself and the intruders. She threw up her mental shield even though she knew it was useless; the keen animal senses of the shapeshifters would be more than enough to track her through the wet woods. She cursed Edward, she cursed the Jefferson Barony, and she cursed her piteous clinging to immortal life under her breath as she ran.

There was a harmonious howl behind her.

"Leave me _alone_!" she cried at the trio that had begun their pursuit.

It was hard to judge time while fleeing headlong through the woods at night, but it didn't seem as if the shapeshifters had even given her the full ten minutes. She scrambled up a steep, rocky hill not far from the Castle Jefferson. She smiled when she realized how close she was. She could take one of the many secret passages carved into the granite of the Olympic Mountains, and once she was in the castle, she could prevail upon the Baron Jefferson to summon the city guard. It was unlikely that the shapeshifters would attempt to fight a large force of alert militiamen, and it was easy enough to convince the credulous townspeople of the threat posed by demons. She flung herself into a darkened pond, knowing what the shapeshifters did not – that it connected with a grotto that led into the bowels of the Castle Jefferson.

Shortly afterwards, the three shapeshifters burst onto the hill and stared into the small pool. Her scent led right into it and vanished, and despite several minutes of searching, they were unable to find another exit point.

"Looks like she got away," observed one of the fully nude men.

"No matter," said the woman. "We had a good chase."

"And we threw her a scare she won't soon forget!"

Meanwhile, Bella burst into the throne room, where the Baron Jefferson was on the floor playing a fantasy war game about orcs and elves.

"Baron!" she cried.

He looked up at Bella and saw she was still covered in blood.

"Your Excellency, what happened!?"

Bella hesitated. The Baron Jefferson knew there was something strange about his two charges – or perhaps, his two masters – but he was an intellectually vacuous man and probably didn't have any inkling as to their true nature despite the fact they hadn't aged a day during his entire life.

"I was attacked," she finally replied, squeezing out a few crocodile tears for show. "I was forced to defend myself against a _terrible_ man. Please, please call the city guard to defend the castle! I don't know how I can sleep tonight otherwise."

"There, there." The Baron waddled over and patted her hand. "There is nothing at all to worry about. Captain Hidalgo!"

The leader of the city watch resented having to be the manchild's game opponent, and was eager for a task that might actually prove interesting.

"Yes, milord?"

"Assemble the guard at once and position them around the castle. I would be devastated if her Excellency was forced to spend a sleepless night due to a lack of diligence on our part."

"At once, sir."

Gratefully, Hidalgo left the throne room.

"Thank you, my lord," Bella said quietly, playing the helpless female. "I apologize but if I could be dismissed to recover my dignity?"

"Of course, of course!"

The Baron was nothing if not pliant. Back in her room, she stripped naked and took a hot shower, a luxury that the detestable peasants of the Jefferson Barony would never know. There was a letter under her door from von Clausewitz, and she burned it without even opening it first. The man was perpetually threatening to undermine her rule with his humanitarianism, and she ruefully suspected she might have to kill him, despite his usefulness. She closed her eyes and allowed the hot water to sluice off the dried blood and dirt, and she cursed Edward, she cursed the Jefferson Barony, and she cursed her relentless eternal life.


End file.
